The Greatest Book Club Ever

December 2008

2008-12-08T17:46:00.000-08:00

Fugitive Pieces by Anne Michaels

(Carley's Pick)

In 1940 a boy bursts from the mud of a war-torn Polish city, where he has buried himself to hide from the soldiers who murdered his family. His name is Jakob Beer. He is only seven years old. And although by all rights he should have shared the fate of the other Jews in his village, he has not only survived but been rescued by a Greek geologist, who does not recognize the boy as human until he begins to cry. With this electrifying image, Anne Michaels ushers us into her rapturously acclaimed novel of loss, memory, history, and redemption.

November 2008

2008-12-08T17:44:00.000-08:00

There is No Death by Sarah Menet

(Kari's Pick)

In 1979, Sarah was pronounced dead. She then had a very special and unique experience, learning many things in the World of Spirits. Sarah's experience is of great interest for several reasons, among which are the extensive detail and unusual scope of her visit to the world beyond and the way it relates to her life's story. Her ability to influence minds and hearts toward a more enlightnened and hopeful outlook has been life-changing to many distressed souls as well as to many who are searching for answers.

October 2008

2008-12-08T17:40:00.000-08:00

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas

(Joni's Pick)

This enduringly popular tale of love and revenge in the post-Napoleonic era follows Edmond Dantes as he prepares to captain his own ship and marry his beloved Mercedes. But on his wedding day, he is betrayed by spiteful enemies and arrested on trumped-up charges. Condemned to lifelong imprisonment, he befriends Faria, a priest and fellow inmate with an escape plan. When Faria dies, Edmond escapes alone. Free at last, and incredibly wealthy, Edmond enters society posing as the Count of Monte Cristo to reclaim his lost love and enact a terrible vengeance on his accusers.

September 2008

2008-12-08T17:37:00.000-08:00

West with the Night by Beryl Markham

(Melanie's Pick)

Growing up in East Africa, the author describes her life as a pioneer aviator, a horse breeder, pilot of passengers and supplies in a small plane to remote corners of Africa, and became the first person to fly solo across the Atlantic from east to west.

July/August 2008

2008-12-08T17:33:00.000-08:00

Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe

(Sarah D's Pick)

Published in 1852, Uncle Tom's Cabin brought the abolitionists' message to the public conscience - no woman before or since has so moved America to take action against an injustice. Indeed, Abraham Lincoln greeted Stowe in 1863 as "the little lady who made this big war."

Eliza Harris, a slave whose child is to be sold, escapes her beloved home on the Shelby plantation in Kentucky and heads North, eluding the hired slave catchers. Aided by the underground railroad, Quakers, and others opposed to the Fugitive Slave Act, Eliza, her son, and her husband George run toward Canada.

As the Harrises flee to freedom, another slave, Uncle Tom, is sent "down the river" for sale. Too loyal to abuse his master's trust, too Christian to rebel, Tom wrenches himself from his family. Befriending a white child, Evangeline St. Clare, Tom is purchased by her father and taken to their home in New Orleans. Although Evangeline's father finally resolves to free his slaves, his sudden death places him in the ranks of those who mean well by their slaves but never take action. Tom is sent farther downriver to Simon Legree's plantation, and the whips of Legree's overseers.

June 2008

2008-12-08T17:30:00.000-08:00

Summer Sisters by Judy Blume

(Michonne's Pick)

In the summer of 1977, Victoria Leonard's world changed forever—when Caitlin Somers chose her as a friend. Dazzling, reckless Caitlin welcomed Vix into the heart of her sprawling, eccentric family, opening doors to a world of unimaginable privilege, sweeping her away to vacations on Martha's Vineyard, a magical, wind-blown island where two friends became summer sisters. . . .

Now, years later, Vix is working in New York City. Caitlin is getting married on the Vineyard. And the early magic of their long, complicated friendship has faded. But Caitlin has begged Vix to come to her wedding, to be her maid of honor. And Vix knows that she will go—for the friend whose casual betrayals she remembers all too well. Because Vix wants to understand what happened during that last shattering summer. And, after all these years, she needs to know why her best friend—her summer sister—still has the power to break her heart....

May 2008

2008-12-08T17:28:00.000-08:00

Peace Like a River by Leif Enger

(Ashley's Pick)

Leif Enger's rhapsodic novel about a father raising his three children in 1960s Minnesota is a breathtaking celebration of family, faith, and America's pioneering spirit. Through the voice of eleven-year-old Reuben, an asthmatic boy obsessed with cowboy stories, Peace Like a River tells of the Land family's cross-country search for Reuben's outlaw older brother, who has been controversially charged with murder. Sprinkled with playful and warmhearted nods to biblical tales, classic American novels such as Huckleberry Finn, the adventure stories of Robert Louis Stevenson, and the Westerns of Zane Grey, Peace Like a River brilliantly incorporates the best elements of all these genres and ultimately earns its own prominent and enduring place on the shelf among them. Reuben Land was born with no air in his lungs, and it was only when his father, Jeremiah, picked him up and commanded him to breathe that his lungs filled. Reuben struggles with debilitating asthma thenceforth, but he is a boy who knows firsthand that life is a gift, and also one who suspects that his father can overturn the laws of nature. When Reuben's older brother, Davy, kills two marauders who have come to harm the family, the town is divided between those who see him as a hero and those who see him as a cold-blooded murderer. On the morning of the trial, Davy escapes from his cell, and when his family finds out they decide to go forth into the unknown in search of him. With Jeremiah -- whose faith is the stuff of legend -- at the helm, the family covers territory far more glorious than even the Badlands, where they search for Davy from their Airstream trailer. By the time the journey is over, they will have traversedboundaries of a different nature entirely. Marked by a soul-expanding sense of place and a love of storytelling, Peace Like a River is at once a heroic quest, a tragedy, a romance, and a heartfelt meditation on the possibility of magic in the everyday world.

April 2008

2008-12-08T17:16:00.000-08:00

Boy: Tales of Childhood by Roald Dahl

(Lisa's Pick)

"'I am only eight years old,' I told myself. 'No little boy of eight has ever murdered anyone. It's not possible.'"

So thought Roald Dahl in 1924 when his plan to get revenge on the mean and disgusting candy-store owner Mrs. Pratchett seemed to have worked all too well. Writing about this and other boyhood adventures, the author has recalled only those that stand out as spectacular. "Some are funny. Some are painful. Some are unpleasant. I suppose that is why I have always remembered them so vividly. All are true."

We are told of his first automobile ride, in which he nearly lost his nose; of the canings by Headmasters and older schoolboys; and of the grisly methods of Matrons, those guardians against misbehavior who supervised the dormitories. There were glorious times, too, with his big family at home in Wales; on holiday each summer on a remote island in Norway; and in the class of an endearing math teacher who thought numbers the dreariest things in the world.

Roald Dahl's adventures and misadventures during his school years are crowded with people as strange and wonderful as any character he has created and are as exciting and full of the unexpected as his celebrated fiction.

Danny the Champion of the World by Roald Dahl

(Lisa's Pick)

Roald Dahl is known for creating stories that are completely unrealistic (and almost immoral) but tremendously funny. This book is no different. Danny is the only son of a car mechanic who lives in a gypsy caravan behind his garage. One evening, Danny wakes up to find his father missing. Hours later he returns and confesses his secret that Danny comes from a long line of pheasant poachers. Poaching is apparently a noble profession practiced by most of the citizens in the community (including the sole police officer), except for the owner of woods where the pheasants live. The owner, Mr. Hazell is a vile, selfish man, thus justifying the illegal activity that takes place in his woods. In this setting the story celebrates the bond between a father and his son. Through all the bizarreness of the story, the poaching methods and revenge tactics, it is the relationship between Danny and his father that remains at the heart of the story. If you are looking for a story with a moral, this is not it. But if you are looking for a sweet and funny fable, this is a wonderful example of storytelling.

March 2008

2008-12-08T17:05:00.000-08:00

An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness by Kay Redfield Jamison

(Jeneil's Pick)

As a founder of UCLA's Affective Disorder Clinic and a co-author of a standard medical text, Dr. Kay Redfield Jamison may be the foremost authority on manic-depressive illness. She is also one of its survivors. And it is this dual perspective -- as healer and healed -- that makes Jamison's memoir so lucid, learned, and profoundly affecting.

Even as she was pursuing her psychiatric training, Jamison found herself succumbing to the exhilarating highs and paralyzing lows that afflicted many of her patients. Though the disorder brought her seemingly boundless energy and mercurial creativity, it also propelled her into spending sprees, episodes of violence, and an attempt at suicide.

Powerfully candid, exceptionally wise, An Unquiet Mind is one of those rare books that has the power to transform lives -- and even save them.

February 2008

2008-02-14T18:10:00.000-08:00

The Samurai's Garden by Gail Tsukiyama

(Sarah's Pick)

The daughter of a Chinese mother and a Japanese father, Tsukiyama uses the Japanese invasion of China during the late 1930s as a somber backdrop for her unusual story about a 20-year-old Chinese painter named Stephen who is sent to his family's summer home in a Japanese coastal village to recover from a bout with tuberculosis. Here he is cared for by Matsu, a reticent housekeeper and a master gardener. Over the course of a remarkable year, Stephen learns Matsu's secret and gains not only physical strength, but also profound spiritual insight. Matsu is a samurai of the soul, a man devoted to doing good and finding beauty in a cruel and arbitrary world, and Stephen is a noble student, learning to appreciate Matsu's generous and nurturing way of life and to love Matsu's soulmate, gentle Sachi, a woman afflicted with leprosy.

January 2008

2008-02-14T18:02:00.000-08:00

For One More Day by Mitch Albom

(Lindsey's Pick)

In Albom's, second novel, retired baseball player Charley "Chick" Benetto-facing the pain of unfulfilled ambitions, alcohol abuse, divorce, and estrangement from a grown daughter-returns to his abandoned childhood home and attempts suicide in a bungling fit of rage. He encounters the spirit of his deceased mother, Pauline "Posey" Benetto, who Chick thoughtlessly took for granted during both his formative years as cocky athlete and his booze-soaked adulthood. Miraculously, Chick can now apologize to Posey for his ingratitude concerning the sacrifices she made as a single, working mother. Albom narrates with finesse, particularly in Chick's wistful litany of his mother's pearls of wisdom, "A child embarrassed by his mother is just a child who hasn't lived long enough." If Posey's truisms may not necessarily break new literary ground, Albom deserves credit for giving her depth and complexity that transcend familiar pop culture notions of motherhood in '50s America. The gentle strumming of musical accompaniment befits Albom's brand of writing. This "ghost story" provides an affirming tale of moral instruction and emotional catharsis.

December 2007

2007-12-05T14:12:00.000-08:00

The Road by Cormac McCarthy
(Candice's Pick)

A father and his son walk alone through burned America. Nothing moves in the ravaged landscape save the ash on the wind. It is cold enough to crack stones, and when the snow falls it is gray. They sky is dark. Their destination is the coast, although they don't know what, if anything, awaits them there. They have nothing; just a pistol to defend themselves against the lawless bands that stalk the road, the clothes they are wearing, a cart of scavenged food-and each other.

The Road is the profoundly moving story of a journey. It boldly imagines a future in which no hope remains, but in which the father and his son, "each the other's world entire," are sustained by love. Awesome in the totality of its vision, it is an unflinching meditation on the worst and the best that we are capable of: ultimate destructiveness, desperate tenacity, and the tenderness that keeps two people alive in the face of total devastation.

November 2007

2007-11-11T16:59:00.000-08:00

The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
(Laura's Pick)

Living on a peach farm in South Carolina with her harsh, unyielding father, Lily Owens has shaped her entire life around one devastating, blurred memory - the afternoon her mother was killed, when Lily was four. Since then, her only real companion has been the fierce-hearted, and sometimes just fierce, black woman Rosaleen, who acts as her "stand-in mother."

When Rosaleen insults three of the deepest racists in town, Lily knows it's time to spring them both free. They take off in the only direction Lily can think of, toward a town called Tiburon, South Carolina - a name she found on the back of a picture amid the few possessions left by her mother.

There they are taken in by an eccentric trio of black beekeeping sisters named May, June, and August. Lily thinks of them as the calendar sisters and enters their mesmerizing secret world of bees and honey, and of the Black Madonna who presides over this household of strong, wise women. Maternal loss and betrayal, guilt and forgiveness entwine in a story that leads Lily to the single thing her heart longs for most.

October 2007

2007-09-10T15:04:00.001-07:00

The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman
(Amber's Pick)

In The Five Love Languages, you will find a couple's guide to help you work as a team. Before you know it, you'll learn to speak and understand the unique languages of love and effectively express your love as well as feel truly loved in return.

September 2007

2007-09-10T14:57:00.000-07:00

Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier
(Cassie's Pick)

It's no wonder that the woman who becomes the second Mrs. de Winter (whose first name we never learn) eagerly accepts Maxim de Winter's offer of matrimony. She's young, orphaned, and employed as companion to a mean-spirited fading beauty. The handsome widower simply sweeps her off her feet. In a matter of days, the new bride accompanies her seemingly devoted husband to Manderley, his isolated home on the Cornish coast. From the first, the sinister housekeeper, Mrs. Danvers, frightens the new bride with her chilling devotion to the dead first Mrs. de Winter, Rebecca. And, all to soon, the second Mrs. de Winter realizes that Maxim married her for her youth and warmth, hoping to use her as a shield against Rebecca's malignant presence -- a lingering evil that threatens to destroy them both from beyond the grave.

First published in 1938, this classic gothic novel is such a compelling read that it won the Anthony Award for Best Novel of the Century.

August 2007

2007-08-15T16:15:00.000-07:00

Stolen Lives by Malika Oufkir
(Lacey's Pick)

Malika Oufkir was born into extreme privilege as the daughter of the king of Morocco's closest aide. But in 1972, her life of luxury came to a crashing halt. Her father was executed for attempting to assassinate the king, and she and her family were imprisoned for two decades. Stolen Lives is the story of their resilience and their resolve to live in freedom.

July 2007

2007-06-25T11:10:00.000-07:00

The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
(Joni's Pick)

The Poisonwood Bible is a story told by the wife and four daughters of Nathan Price, a fierce, evangelical Baptist who takes his family and mission to the Belgian Congo in 1959. They carry with them everything they believe they will need from home, but soon find that all of it -- from garden seeds to Scripture -- is calamitously transformed on African soil. What follows is a suspenseful epic of one family's tragic undoing and remarkable reconstruction over the course of three decades in postcolonial Africa.

June 2007

2007-06-05T12:46:00.000-07:00

The House of the Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne
(Loralee's Pick)

Hawthorne's tale about the brooding hold of the past over the present is a complex one, twisting and turning its way back through many generations of a venerable New England family, one of whose members was accused of witchcraft in 17th century Salem. More than 200 years later, we meet the family in its decaying, gabled mansion, still haunted by the presence of dead ancestors: Hepzibah, an elderly gentlewoman fallen on had times; her ineffectual brother, Clifford; and young Phoebe, a country maiden who cheerfully takes it upon herself to care for her two doddering relations. There's also Holgrave, a free-spirited daguerreotypist, who makes a surprising transformation into conventional respectability at the story's end. These people seem to be symbols for Hawthorne's theme more than full-bodied characters in their own right. As such, it can only be difficult for today's young adults to identify with them, especially since they are so caught up in a past that is all but unknown to present day sensibilities.

May 2007

2007-05-31T08:28:00.000-07:00

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
(Melody's Pick)

"I became what I am today at the age of twelve, on a frigid overcast day in the winter of 1975." So begins The Kite Runner, a poignant tale of two motherless boys growing up in Kabul, a city teetering on the brink of destruction at the dawn of the Soviet invasion.

Despite their class differences, Amir, the son of a wealthy businessman, and Hassan, his devoted sidekick and the son of Amir's household servant, play together, cause mischief together, and compete in the annual kite-fighting tournament -- Amir flying the kite, and Hassan running down the kites they fell. But one day, Amir betrays Hassan, and his betrayal grows increasingly devastating as their tale continues. Amir will spend much of his life coming to terms with his initial and subsequent acts of cowardice, and finally seek to make reparations.

Hosseini's depiction of the cruelty children suffer at the hands of their "friends" will break your heart. And his descriptions of Afghanistan both before and after the war will haunt readers long after they've read the last page. The Kite Runner is a stunning reminder that the dark hearts of adults are made, step-by-step, by the hatred they learn as children, and that all it takes for evil to triumph is for a good man to stand back and do nothing.

April 2007

2007-05-31T08:26:00.000-07:00

The Pursuit of Happyness by Chris Gardner
(Michonne's Pick)

In this astounding yet true rags-to-riches saga, twenty-year-old Milwaukee native Chris Gardner arrives in San Francisco to pursue a promising career in medicine. Considered a prodigy in scientific research, he surprises everyone and himself by setting his sights on the competitive world of high finance.

Yet no sooner has he landed an entry-level position at a prestigious firm, than Gardner is entangled in incredibly challenging circumstances leaving him and his toddler son homeless on the mean streets of San Francisco, never guessing that he would one day become a crown prince of Wall Street.

Mythic, triumphant, and unstintingly honest, The Pursuit of Happyness appeals to the very essence of the American Dream.

March 2007

2007-05-31T08:23:00.000-07:00

The Secret by Rhonda Byrne
(Candice's Pick)

Fragments of a Great Secret have been found in the oral traditions, in literature, in religions and philosophies throughout the centuries. For the first time, all the pieces of The Secret come together in an incredible revelation that will be life-transforming for all who experience it.

In this book, you'll learn how to use The Secret in every aspect of your life -- money, health, relationships, happiness, and in every interaction you have in the world. You'll begin to understand the hidden, untapped power that's within you, and this revelation can bring joy to every aspect of your life.

The Secret contains wisdom from modern-day teachers -- men and women who have used it to achieve health, wealth, and happiness. By applying the knowledge of The Secret, they bring to light compelling stories of eradicating disease, acquiring massive wealth, overcoming obstacles, and achieving what many would regard as impossible.

February 2007

2007-05-31T08:20:00.000-07:00

The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenneger
(Rachel's Pick)

Often lighthearted, thoroughly original, and ultimately profoundly moving, Audrey Niffenegger's first novel tells the story of two people destined to be together: Clare, a perfectly normal woman, and Henry, a time-traveler.

According to the unique rules that Niffenegger creates, Henry travels unexpectedly and mostly to his own past, often when he is "all stressed out and [has] lost his grip on now." As Henry explains when he first meets Clare: "…the person you know doesn't exist yet. Stick with me, and sooner or later he's bound to appear. That's the best I can do." And while it's true that Henry travels to different moments in time, he also travels from them as well. He frequently gets lost in time and doesn't know "when" he is.

But the real story of the book is the lifelong love Clare and Henry share as they try to make the most of the times they have together -- the times when Henry is not traveling.

Subtle but powerful, The Time Traveler's Wife is a book whose importance becomes more evident with each turn of the page, provoking readers to ask themselves if they've made the most of the moments of their lives --moments so fleeting, they could be time travelers themselves.

January 2007

2007-05-31T08:15:00.000-07:00

Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger
(Ashley's Pick)

Volume containing two interrelated stories by J.D. Salinger, published in book form in 1961. The stories, originally published in The New Yorker magazine, concern Franny and Zooey Glass, two members of the family that was the subject of most of Salinger's short fiction.

Franny is an intellectually precocious late adolescent who tries to attain spiritual purification by obsessively reiterating the "Jesus prayer" as an antidote to the perceived superficiality and corruptness of life. She subsequently suffers a nervous breakdown.

In the second story, her next older brother, Zooey, attempts to heal Franny by pointing out that her constant repetition of the "Jesus prayer" is as self-involved and egotistical as the egotism against which she rails.

December 2006

2007-05-31T08:11:00.000-07:00

Expecting Adam by Martha Beck
(Jeneil's Pick)

From the moment Martha and her husband, John, accidentally conceived their second child, all hell broke loose. They were a couple obsessed with success. After years of matching IQs and test scores with less driven peers, they had two Harvard degrees apiece and were gunning for more. They'd plotted out a future in the most vaunted ivory tower of academe. But the dream had begun to disintegrate. When their unborn son, Adam, was diagnosed with Down's Syndrome , doctors, advisers, and friends in the Harvard community warned them that if they decided to keep the baby, they would lose all hope of achieving their carefully crafted goals. Fortunately, that's exactly what happened. Expecting Adam is a poignant, challenging, and achingly funny chronicle of the extraordinary nine months of Martha's pregnancy. By the time Adam was born, Martha and John were propelled into a world in which they were forced to redefine everything of value to them, put all their faith in miracles, and trust that they could fly without a net. And it worked.

November 2006

2007-05-31T08:06:00.000-07:00

I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith
(Lacey's Pick)

I Capture the Castle tells the story of seventeen-year-old Cassandra and her family, who live in not-so-genteel poverty in a ramshackle old English castle. Here she strives, over six turbulent months, to hone her writing skills. She fills three notebooks with sharply funny yet poignant entries. Her journals candidly chronicle the great changes that take place within the castle's walls, and her own first descent into love. By the time she pens her final entry, she has "captured the castle"--and the heart of the reader--in one of literature's most enchanting entertainments.

September/October 2006

2007-05-31T08:02:00.000-07:00

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
(Loralee's Pick)

Pip is an orphan, alone in the world. Then his path crosses with that of an escaped convict, and his life is never the same again. From the decaying mansion of Miss Havisham and her cold, beautiful ward, Estella, to a new world of unexpected wealth, Pip must struggle to find his way. Mysterious forces are at work, shaping his life in a conspiracy of love, fear, fate, and chance. Pip knows the kind of life he was meant to lead. What he doesn't know is whether life will lead him in an altogether different - and startling -- direction.

August 2006

2007-05-31T08:00:00.000-07:00

Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden

In this literary tour de force, novelist Arthur Golden enters a remote and shimmeringly exotic world. For the protagonist of this peerlessly observant first novel is Sayuri, one of Japan's most celebrated geisha, a woman who is both performer and courtesan, slave and goddess.

We follow Sayuri from her childhood in an impoverished fishing village, where in 1929, she is sold to a representative of a geisha house, who is drawn by the child's unusual blue-grey eyes. From there she is taken to Gion, the pleasure district of Kyoto. She is nine years old. In the years that follow, as she works to pay back the price of her purchase, Sayuri will be schooled in music and dance, learn to apply the geisha's elaborate makeup, wear elaborate kimono, and care for a coiffure so fragile that it requires a special pillow. She will also acquire a magnanimous tutor and a venomous rival. Surviving the intrigues of her trade and the upheavals of war, the resourceful Sayuri is a romantic heroine on the order of Jane Eyre and Scarlett O'Hara. And Memoirs of a Geisha is a triumphant work - suspenseful, and utterly persuasive.

July 2006

2007-05-31T07:57:00.000-07:00

The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
(Amber's Pick)

When we first meet Susie Salmon, she is already in heaven. As she looks down from this strange new place, she tells us, in the fresh and spirited voice of a fourteen-year-old girl, a tale that is both haunting and full of hope.

In the weeks following her death, Susie watches life on Earth continuing without her -- her school friends trading rumors about her disappearance, her family holding out hope that she'll be found, her killer trying to cover his tracks. As months pass without leads, Susie sees her parents' marriage being contorted by loss, her sister hardening herself in an effort to stay strong, and her little brother trying to grasp the meaning of the word gone.

And she explores the place called heaven. It looks a lot like her school playground, with the good kind of swing sets. There are counselors to help newcomers adjust and friends to room with. Everything she ever wanted appears as soon as she thinks of it -- except the thing she most wants: to be back with the people she loved on Earth.

With compassion, longing, and a growing understanding, Susie sees her loved ones pass through grief and begin to mend. Her father embarks on a risky quest to ensnare her killer. Her sister undertakes a feat of remarkable daring. And the boy Susie cared for moves on, only to find himself at the center of a miraculous event.

The Lovely Bones is luminous and astonishing, a novel that builds out of grief the most hopeful of stories. In the hands of a brilliant new writer, this story of the worst thing a family can face is transformed into a suspenseful and even funny novel about love, memory, joy, heaven, and healing.

June 2006

2007-05-31T07:53:00.000-07:00

Mutant Message Down Under by Marlo Morgan
(Joni's Pick)

Mutant Message Down Under is the fictional account of an American woman's spiritual odyssey through outback Australia. An underground bestseller in its original self-published edition, Marlo Morgan's powerful tale of challenge and endurance has a message for us all.

Summoned by a remote tribe of nomadic Aborigines to accompany them on walkabout, the woman makes a four-month-long journey and learns how they thrive in natural harmony with the plants and animals that exist in the rugged lands of Australia's bush. From the first day of her adventure, Morgan is challenged by the physical requirements of the journey—she faces daily tests of her endurance, challenges that ultimately contribute to her personal transformation.

By traveling with this extraordinary community, Morgan becomes a witness to their essential way of being in a world based on the ancient wisdom and philosophy of a culture that is more than 50,000 years old.

May 2006

2007-05-31T07:42:00.000-07:00

Life of Pi by Yann Martel
(Lindsey's Pick)

Drawing parallels between zoology and theology, Martel's novel is by turns amusing, intellectually astute, and poignant. And his Kiplingesque adventure tale will cause readers to reexamine beliefs of all kinds.

Meet Pi Patel, a young man on the cusp of adulthood when fate steps in and hastens his lessons in maturity. En route with his family from their home in India to Canada, their cargo ship sinks, and Pi finds himself adrift in a lifeboat -- alone, save for a few surviving animals, some of the very same animals Pi's zookeeper father warned him would tear him to pieces if they got a chance. But Pi's seafaring journey is about much more than a struggle for survival. It becomes a test of everything he's learned -- about both man and beast, their creator, and the nature of truth itself.

With a brilliant combination of sensitivity and a precise economy of language, Martel develops a story some readers might find less than credible. But his capacity for the mysterious, and a true understanding of the depths of human resilience will compel even the most skeptical of readers to continue on the fantastic journey with Pi, and an unusual 450-pound Bengal tiger named Richard Parker.

April 2006

2007-05-31T07:38:00.000-07:00

The Great Divorce by CS Lewis
(Kristin's Pick)

C. S. Lewis takes us on a profound journey through both heaven and hell in this engaging allegorical tale. Using his extraordinary descriptive powers, Lewis introduces us to supernatural beings who will change the way we think about good and evil.